Deborah – Graduate FESA Research Assistant

What is your role at MRC Harwell?

I work in the FESA team, which is the Frozen Embryos and Sperm Archiving team. This is where we use mice and we fertilise the embryos to generate their lines and keep them in the archiving bank for future use.

What is your background? Did you see yourself doing this kind of job when you were younger?

I did the normal route like everyone: GCSES, A-Levels, and then went to uni and studied medical science because I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be in the medical field.

At one point I did a module that I enjoyed, which was IVF embryo-based fertilisation, things like that. That’s when I realised I really enjoyed it and that led me to doing a Masters in Leeds, which was clinical embryology and artificial reproductive technology.

When I finished my Masters, the pandemic started, unfortunately, and that meant that I wasn’t able to go straight into figuring out exactly what I wanted to do, which was either research or working in a fertility clinic, so there was a big gap between when I finished my Masters and when I was able to get a job in the field that I really wanted to.

I saw the opening for a graduate program and I thought, you know, let me give this a try, since technically I’m still kind of a graduate. And it was lovely to see that they were taking on people that didn’t just finish from uni, but people from all kinds of backgrounds. The fact that you just had the educational background that they were looking for and some sort of experience that lined up with what they needed.

What have you enjoyed most about being on the Graduate Programme?

Working at the MLC has been amazing. Like, the people here have been really nice. They’re all so welcoming. They don’t judge you for age or your background, who you are. They are all willing to help you, help you along your journey, help you learn, help you do the job.

So I definitely feel like if there’s something out there, you know, anyone you want to do and stuff like that, definitely give it a try. Come to the MLC!

What do you want to do next?

What I want to do next is figure out life! I think I’m leaning towards maybe going into fertility clinics because right now I’ve always been torn between research and going into actual fertility clinics, and I think I’ve enjoyed research, but I definitely feel like maybe trying out the fertility would kind of cement exactly what I want to do, and that’s kind of the plan.

Deborah joined the MLC through our Graduate Development Programme. You can find out more about the programme as well as interviews with our other graduates on our Graduate Development Programme page.